Enabling the citizen-driven renewable energy transition

Community energy structures do not only present a crucial alternative to the current predominant fossil-based energy landscape, but also create additional economic, social, and environmental benefits to the involved communities. However, it is often challenging to get citizen-led renewable energy initiatives off the ground due to complex regulatory and policy contexts, limited access to information and finance, and the existing centralised fossil-based energy market structures. This can hinder the successful uptake of community-driven renewable energy systems. To foster the renewable energy transition, various enablers are needed to overcome those barriers in the development of community energy business models. To establish a robust support structure for the uptake of civic energy, this paper identifies enabling factors, based on five years of piloting over 30 various civic energy business models throughout seven European states. A review of these enabling factors has revealed five main civic energy enabler clusters: Legal frameworks, Knowledge, Finance, Management, and Acceptance. This paper analyses the civic energy enablers' functions and relevance for the successful development of community-based energy initiatives and recommends next steps forward.